Our Lady of Lourdes

Song for Mary

Prayer

The most beautiful thing this side of Heaven

Mass tonight was even more thrilling than usual. There were a lot of new people there besides the regulars and the confession line was long. Among the regulars were a charming woman I've nicknamed Sweet Mommy and her Delightful Daughter. Sweet Mommy is married to Funny Daddy. The Handsome Indian Couple were their usual pew. Big Irish, who looks like he could kneecap you but is actually a very tender hearted guy was up front, the Three Cute Girls were on the St. Joseph side, the Shy Young Fellows were on the Our Lady side and the Big Jolly Family who come in a tank were spread out in two pews. There is always a big assortment of single people in their 20s and we get worshipers from around the world. To see this kind of variety in peoples you'd have to go to a cathedral in the city but we were were all together in a little back water parish for the Tridentine Mass. What a beautiful thing.

A word to the guys

• A woman who works in ANY capacity for Planned Parenthood or who mentions that yeah sure, she had one or more abortions,  says she is not the least bit sorry  and takes offense when you are disturbed by that knowledge will, inevitably hurt you to the soul one day. Without total conversion she simply can't help herself. Having paid someone to slaughter her own little baby she can now do anything. Run away.

• Do not marry the perpetual damsel in distress. The woman who needs you to save her from herself will bring painful drama to your life forever. 

•  Don't marry an unbeliever thinking that it will convert them. Missionary dating and marriage rarely work and  the cases where it did work owe it to divine intervention. You probably aren't St. Clotilda or  the Prophet Hosea so don't go looking for suffering young bro. 

Do you think Christ doesn't notice?

Do you think it escapes Our Lord's notice how many of us say "God bless America," in one breath but twist and squirm  and remain silent when it comes to saying, "I oppose abortion,"?

Reparation Prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

Prayer

The Wounds of Christ

Within Thy wounds, hide me, Lord. 

Random thoughts on a Tuesday

• The music director at church is looking for a new cantor. I wish a basso profundo would walk through the doors.  I'd love to hear a voice like this just once. Can you imagine a basso singing "Shine Jesus, Shine?" I sure can't.

• I was listening to a priest giving an interview who mentioned that many people in America are going and have gone insane. I think he's right. There seem to be more people wandering the streets in desperate need of care in a mental institution. Craziness seems to be everywhere, in the grocery store, at work, among celebrities. Everyday something more gross and disgusting is said or done in public--always in public so we can "celebrate" it, and the priest said it is because we in the West are slaves to appetite and feelings both which will, if not kept in check lead to madness.
•   I'm starting the St. Monica Novena today.
• I have an interview today and I am very nervous. I shouldn't be but I am.
  
• Louie, Louie, Oh, Oh , he's mad now, oh, oh, oh.....
  
  
• I'm so looking forward to Mass tonight at St. Rita's.

The Assumption

Oh Queen Assumed into Heaven to be with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost forever, pray for us.

A word from Pope Benedict XV

"One cannot sufficiently deplore the blindness of so many women of every age and condition; made foolish by desire to please, they do not see to what a degree the indecency of their clothing shocks every honest man, and offends God. Most of them would formerly have blushed for those toilettes as for a grave fault against Christian modesty; now it does not suffice for them to exhibit them on the public thoroughfares; they do not fear to cross the threshold of the churches, to assist at the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, and even to bear the seducing food of shameful passions to the Eucharistic Table where one receives the heavenly Author of purity. And We speak not of those exotic and barbarous dances recently imported into fashionable circles, one more shocking than the other; one cannot imagine anything more suitable for banishing all that remains of modesty."

Prayer and pardon

French painter, Jules Breton loved Brittany and he was fascinated with the beautiful effects of Confession. He painted three versions of Breton women and the peace of pardon.

Once again I ask, "Where are the American Catholics on this?"

We don't expect much from the bishops in France but this sympathetic gesture is more than what I've seen from American dioceses.

True Love

Random thoughts....

• Go to the end of the video. The cantor is singing to Mother Earth. It's bad enough that sick people, many of whom have access to no Mass but the one on TV and who haven't had anyone from their parish come near them since they got sick, are forced to put up with cheesy Masses on TV but this is just too much and the the pries having to go along with it is just pathetic.
  
• Friday I got sick and after work I went home, got into to bed and slept until 11 AM the next day. Rocky and I went to Mass and then I went back to bed. I guess it's partly from a sinus infection and partly from grief over work.  On the positive side I think I must have sent out over 50 resumes.
  
• Michael Matt says he was a baby during Vatican II and is really sick of hearing about it. I giggled a bit when I heard him say that.
  
  
• I have a feeling that the "compassion" for divorced and invalidly remarried Catholics is just a   camel's nose under tent distraction for something else to slip by at the October synod.
  
  
• Cecil the lion was not beloved by the villagers who lived next the preserve. When your experience with lions is seeing your sister being eaten by one and being unable to go get water from the river because you don't want to be next, it makes it pretty darn hard to sing along to Disney's The Lion King. Warble "Hakuna matata" at a rural Zimbabwean and you might get slapped.
  
  
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• Christians are being killed in the Middle East the Vatican is inviting Oprah to come visit and asking us to apologize for sins against the Earth.  When the Princes of the Church get frivolous it's a sign that a correction-- a good bracing slap is needed. 

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us

The sword of Hilary

No, I don't mean Bill Clinton's wife, I mean Hilary White the spunky Catholic columnist and blogger. She's written a commentary on pitiful Cardinal Sean O'Malley and the pro-life movement that is sobering and sharp as a sword as one commenter points out.

St. Philomena novena

I'm currently praying the St. Philomena Novena. The reminders come to my in-box everyday thanks to the lovely people at Pray More Novenas.

Let's help Jessica make it to the convent

A fellow Virginia and recent graduate of William & Mary wants to follow Our Lord to the Benedictine convent but she has to pay off her college debt hopefully before she's too old to be admitted. You can help her out here. 

Traveling can really make you appreciate your own parish

Rocky and I were on a road trip and had to go to a local parish for our Sunday obligation. It was interesting. The church was the drabbest I've ever seen, A Quaker or any Anabaptist could've walked in said, "Guys plain doesn't have to be this ugly." The people were very nice, they treat their elders with consideration and I was SO impressed by the kids. They were well behaved. The brat factor in Northern Virginia is so high it's a nice surprise seeing ten years olds sitting without video games or having to go to the restroom three times in an hour.  The homily was strange. The priest left the pulpit and gave his homily like a motivational speaker moving back and forth across the stage.  The music was totally Protestant and concert length. At one point the priest and the sulky altar girl were standing for an inordinately long time waiting while the guitars strummed and the choir sang on and on. Poor Father was visibly startled when Rocky received Communion on his tongue but recovered himself when I stepped up.
As for the altar girl.......why do parents force their kids to serve? If you daughter is scowling, dragging her feet, flipping her hair,  wearing makeup that makes her look like she just came out of a biker bar, slouching into the sacristy in booty shorts and a t-shirt that might fit a three year old or lounging by the altar before Mass I think she really doesn't want to be there. Maybe you are trying to show her who is boss but do you have to have this fight in Our Lord's house?

The influencers in America have gone insane

At work my colleagues are just about weeping over a dead lion but haven't said jack about Planned Parenthood. It's been chilling to watch.  They just parrot whatever they hear on TV. I wonder how many people who have wept over the lion would even bother to shrug their shoulders over the Zimbabweans who have been attacked by lions?  Probably not a one, which is the real reason why Americans are hated.  It sure isn't for our so-called freedom. We tell people how to live. We tell people that they can't have roads, schools, hospitals and indoor plumbing because we like their plants and animals more than we like them.  We cheerfully strip people of their dignity. We threaten their countries for the sake of homosexuals. We interfere with their efforts to uplift themselves and give them sterilization as... charity.
When you get to the point where you are willing to threaten a man (whom granted, sounds like a jerk- I have nothing against hunting but it has to be a righteous kill-within the law and with work involved)  and his home and family over a beast but care nothing for human life, you have gone insane and need a good dose of reality and something serious to occupy your excessive free time.

REPARATION PRAYER

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

Catholic bloggers take note-- be kind to your readers and take care of your own reputation

I've decided that except for the beautiful and carefully curated, Go and Announce blog I'm avoiding Tumblr blogs altogether. This includes the beautiful Raccolta blog.  An all too typical scenario consists of a presumably devout person posting gorgeous paintings of Our Lord, Our Lady and the saints but failing to  take the time to check the blog or site where they got the image from. Too many times I've clicked on a image on a Catholic Tumblr blog in order to find out more about it and found myself at a grotesque and graphic gay or feminist  site. This rarely happens with Blogger or Wordpress blogs for some reason.

Catholic bloggers please take care about where you get your images from and check your linked sites occasionally. If I click on a link and find wickedness it will make me wonder about you. After-all, including a site on your links list indicates to the reader that you like this person or their writing or the information posted on their blog. If that blog contains blasphemous or obscene material I must assume that you like or at least don't feel to bothered about blasphemous and obscene stuff and I won't be back to your blog. I don't waste time on people I don't trust.

Planned Parenthood and screams in the night

We knew that the Planned Parenthood women were hags inside despite pleasant facades. We knew they sell the dismembered body parts of murdered infants and we can guess that the hag who said she wants a Lamborghini probably didn't have a Southern mama to tell her that people in Hell want ice water.

 Judging by the online responses on blogs and Twitter, it was hearing unguarded, uncovered evil from the mouths of the Planned Parenthood hags and seeing it on video that made them wake up. Part of me wants to ask, "Where the Sam Hill have you been all these years?" and part of me is just thankful that more people see what Planned Parenthood is....evil. Full strength evil from the cute girls at the receptionist desk, to  the motherly (hah!) escort, to the death dealing nurse and doctors, to the person who takes out the trash, all of them, fetid, stinking evil.

Whitaker Chambers once told a story of a talk he had with a young European woman who explained to  him how her father finally gave up Communism. It wasn't an intellectual argument that swayed him. One night he was in Moscow and heard screams coming from an apartment after the secret police went in. He heard the screams and like St. Paul, the scales fell from his eyes.  He realized that although he had never lifted a finger of violence towards anyone, his support of Communism was contributing to the torture of another human being. I don't know what's going to happen now for many of the people who saw the videos. Whether they continue to support Planned Parenthood or whether they flee its evil and work to get it defunded they've crossed a line. Nobody can say they didn't know.

Reprartation prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

St. Anthony

This is a different St. Anthony and the Christ Child painting because Our Lord isn't an infant and Our Lady is present.

Don't give up

In 722, things looked completely hopeless in Spain. The Moors had invaded and conquered everything worth having. There was one man, Pelayo, king of a ten mile kingdom in the Cantabrian Mountains with some 300 men and their families. When the Muslims came for them it surely seemed hopeless but there was a miracle. The Moors were driven back.  King Pelayo and his people would long be in their graves by the time Queen Isabella her husband finally drove the Moors out of Spain 700 years later but it was the beginning.  

Thanks to Our Lady for a wonderful vacation.

Rocky and I just got home from vacation in Lancaster, Pennslyvania. It was great. We both needed to get away and thanks to the stuff going on at my job I was in a state of the jitters for most of every work day. I don't think I really calmed down until day three of the vacation.  We stayed in a Mennonite owned bed and breakfast. They were fine people. The Amish and Mennonites came about because of bad priests. I pray that one day a holy, brave priest will be able to get a serious conversion mission going there.  We took one day to go to Philadelphia and to visit the shrines of St. John Neuman and the Miraculous Medal Shrine.  We went to Mass in Philly and at St. Anthony's in the city of Lancaster. Both Masses reminded me of how blessed we are in the Arlington diocese. I think Pennsylvania's bishops must have gotten a deal on cheap vestments. All the poor priests looked like their chasubles would fall to pieces in they got caught in the rain.

 While, in Lancaster County, I did my best to sample ever farm wife's version of the Whoopie Pie that I could. I fed goats, turkeys, oggled peacocks, llamas, alpacas, ate eggs from the hens whose house and yard was a few feet from our window, bought a quilt, looked at farms and slept well each night. The only hiccup in the whole trip was that the car's engine stopped on the highway while we were on the way home. With 70 miles to go, Rocky was able to coast to jersey wall and we called AAA. With 20 minutes a tow truck driver from the Dominican Republic came to our rescue and drove us and the ailing car home. Thank God we had just come from the Grotto of Lourdes Shrine in Emittsburg. If we'd taken the shorter way home instead of stopping off to visit Mary's shrine we might've broken down in one of the worst parts of Baltimore or  in PG County. We had potential danger from bad drivers but had we taken the shortest route home we could've been in real danger from crime.

Mass without pews- wartime edition

Guardian angel

Fr. Aziz is free

Thanks be to God. Fr. Aziz, the priest who was kidnapped in Syria has been freed. 

Reparation prayer

REPARATION PRAYER

Eternal Father, turn away Thy angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Thine eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Thy Beloved Son, for this is the Face of Him in Whom Thou art well pleased. We now offer Thee this Holy Face, covered with shame and disfigured by bloody bruises in reparation for the crimes of our age in order to appease Thine anger, justly provoked against us. Because Thy Divine Son, our Redeemer, has taken upon His Head all the sins of His members, that they might be spared, we now beg of Thee, Eternal Father, to grant us mercy. AMEN.

(from the Holy Face Devotion prayers)

The Good Shepherd and His Mother

Please pray for Fr. Aziz

Fr. Dhiya Aziz  was kidnapped in Syria on July 4th. No-one has heard anything since.  I don't think I have to go into detail about what kind of danger he is in.


St. Francis, pray for your son.
St. Pio, pray for him.
St. Jospeh Cuppertino, pray for him.
St. Benedict, the Moor, pray for him.
St. Anthony, pray for him.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for him.
Saints Daniel, Peter Baptist and their companions, pray for him.
Blessed Raymond Lull, pray for him.

A word from Our Lady of Akita

“If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the Bishops and the priests.”  ~Our Lady of Akita

On judgement day pointing to someone else won't work any more than it did for Adam

I was reading a discussion in which a well meaning person was complaining that Catholics are confused because of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Hogwash. Just because Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedys and possibly all the way back to John Carroll are/were  bad Catholics is no excuse for the rest of us.

The goddess liberty versus Christ the King

I can't remember if I was in high school or college when I heard one of my teachers mention that America has a birth defect in that it was created by men who were at best, Diests. For some reason I never forgot that and it comes back to me every 4th of July. 

Oops, down go the Episcopalians...

The Episcopalians have voted to have same sex weddings. This should come as no surprise as this is a religion that was founded by a man who wanted to cast aside his wife over twenty years in order to "marry" his mistress.  As we all know, it didn't work out well for the mistress. The man was fickle and after a thousand or so days of living with her, his lust had pretty much turned to hate and he had her killed. The union did produce Elizabeth I, one of the greatest killers of Catholics in history. Interesting.

Here's to the ladies

Maureen Mallarkey is on fire.

Miss Hillary Margaret Jane White is back in her lady-like but devastating form.

The always wise Mary Ann Kreitzer has a powerful warning for any parents who think their kids couldn't possibly be brainwashed in school.

Tears, idle tears.

When I was a child my mother always scolded me for crying when I was punished because I had been told repeatedly what would happen if I did  X and chose to do it anyway. I don’t think anybody who has been paying attention is really surprised by the Supreme Court decision today. It’s been in the works for a long time. Back in 2009, when I wrote about our national bacchanal and vomitorium I guessed that homosexual marriage would be the law of the land in five years. I was off by one. I figure that legalized polygamy and adult incest will be the next devils to jump up.  There's no point in crying now. Penance, penance, penance.

     Repost from 2009: Welcome to the Vomitorium

At first glance the whole subject seems too ridiculous to entertain. I don't think any of the gay men I know really want to be married. They want a gaudy spectacle of a wedding. They want attention but I doubt that they have any concept of what marriage is supposed to be. I say supposed to be because normal people have damaged the institution of marriage and damaged it severely. It's like taking a piece of fine linen and tearing it to shreds and then objecting when your kid puts his dirty hands on it.

Marriage was mocked and shredded long ago. And you know who did it? Your parents and their parents. When Elizabeth Taylor was going from man to man people still flocked to her movies. When Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner humiliated his wife in public, people idolized Frank and couldn't get enough of Ava. And don't forget your part: you love reading People and US magazine to see what Brad and Angie are up to, don't you?

We will never know for sure if Cardinal Cushing knew the extent of JFKsadultery but we do know years later when Jackie was about to marry the divorced Aristotle Onassis when people asked Cushing what he thought he stated that people should practice charity and leave Jackie alone. Later when Jackie died she was given a Catholic funeral, anyone who mentioned that at the time of her death she had been living with a married man was branded a gauche hater. 
Decades earlier, Archbishop Sheen told Joe DiMaggio to his face that his "marriage" to Marilyn Monroe was wrong, but he was only the only churchman who did. It may not seem like much now but millions of Catholics and non Catholics were watching and listening and making conclusions.

Once, a divorce or open adultery was the end of a Protestant minister's career. No more. In the 1950s, the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell dumped his wife to marry his lover. Most people in the church were shocked but didn't stop attending Abyssinian Baptist Church. Joel Osteen's father was a divorced man but that didn't faze his congregants. He married again and built up a powerful ministry that spawned the career of Joel. Richard Roberts, son of Oral, divorced his wife and most people in the church didn't even flinch, at least not in public where it counted. Some people excuse the ministers by saying that it's hard being a preacher's wife (it is) or that the wife wasn't fit to be a preacher's wife and that the divorce was her fault. Other's use the King David excuse. 

In the American Catholic church annulments are handed out like cookies at a girl scout meeting. People who've been married for decades with teen aged or adult children have gotten annulments. Are you telling me that ALL of these annulled marriages REALLY were invalid? Now, yes, of course, there are pitiful cases where an annulment is the only right thing to do : A woman who finds that she's married to a secretly gay man was lied to from the beginning. Her marriage was not valid. She did not have all the facts before the wedding. A man who finds that his wife has no intention of having children and didn't tell him was duped into a false marriage. I know of one woman who married a man who suffered from severe depression. His family was relieved when he married. Did anyone tell the wife about his condition? I don't know but if no-one did she has a right to an annulment one day. Those are sad cases but they aren't common. They aren't enough to fuel the annulment machine we seem to have today. And let's not forget the divorced and remarried Catholics who haven't gone the annulment route have been known to present themselves for Communion.

To a gay man, who is the victim of parents who probably didn't have the marriage they should've had or who fell prey to a horrible situation early in his development it must seem like rank hypocrisy that we who have played marriage so fast and loose should turn our noses up at him for trying to play house. I could argue with him pointing out that he's not right in the head (and he is not) but he could argue back that the society that produced him is sicker. I expect gay marriage to be the law of the land within five years. Of course, if it's true that as some economists are predicting, that the entire US economy is going to collapse, gay marriage will collapse with it. A rich fat man can afford to be decadent. He can afford to ignore gay marriage.As long as his wife's gay friends don't insinuate themselves into his children's lives, he'll shrug his shoulders about the whole thing. A man who's rioting in the streets for food or who hasn't worked in over a year will not look kindly on thefrivolous or the ridiculous. After the binge comes the hangover. After thebacchanal somebody is left cleaning up the vomitorium.

The tears of St. Peter.

Mass Without Pews....wartime edition

Random thoughts about that encyclical and other stuff now the headache has finally let up

• It must have been awful for Catholics when Pope Libirious  went bad. It must have been even worse for people under Popes Virgilius, Honorius and John XXII (22). It must have been sickening for a decent person watching Pope Alexander flaunt his mistress and children.  We were chosen out of all eternity to live at this time and life is not always peaches and pretzels. Take up your cross and follow Christ on the Via Dolorosa.
  
  
  

• Now, about the new encyclical. My inclination is pretty close to Chris Jackson,  but the trouble is too many people will try to rub their heads and stomachs counterclockwise at the same time while jumping on one foot if they think that's what a pope wants them to do. I see most of the Environmentalist movement as a cruel Sovietesque system that wants me to live like a 6th century peasant while the elite live happily ever after. This makes me nervous, irritated and in a mood to fight.  I'd rather see the whole secular system fall to pieces than live the way the enviros want.Beyond the subject of the latest encyclical,  we need to remember that not every single word that comes from the Holy Father's lips or from his computer is infallible.  If the pope is speaking about the deposit of Faith and says something like, "I, Pope Jones, successor of Peter, say to you.....that the Eucharist is Christ," then I'm his Huckleberry but if he says, "All good Catholics have to eat cilantro,"  then I'm free to ignore it. When the Holy Father writes that the world increasingly looks like a pile a filth and he is not talking about parts of India  and Nigeria where people squat in the streets to defecate  or parts of the Philippines  but means the West with it's sanitation plants and indoor plumbing I'm raising an eyebrow.
  
  
  
  
  
• In your charity please pray for the parishioners of the Church of the Loaves and Fishes in Tabgha, Israel. Their church which honors one of Our Lord's most spectacular miracles was attacked with arson and vandalism. Many people in the US who call themselves Christian are greeting their story and the stories of Christians all over the Middle East with embarrassed silence.
  
   

• On the home front, things are better and worse. My uncle's health has improved enough to leave the critical care floor and return to a regular room in the nursing home. Life at work, stinks. It just plain stinks. When my uncles's health settles down and gets off the wild roller coaster it's been on and when my migraines settle down (it's always bad the season's change and especially when it's thunderstorm season in Virginia) I'm going to start a new job campaign. 

Happy Father's Day

The Crucifxion by Vasnetsov

St. Charles Borromeo

Want to ruin your marriage?

• Disrespect  your husband in public. He may love you so much that you can get away with it for a long time, but it will come back to bite you.   I once watched a serious Catholic woman discuss her sex life. She was talking about NFP. Her husband sat next to her with this frozen look on his face like someone has just shot off a gun next to his ear. That woman may know about NFP but she knows nothing about honoring her husband and keeping private things private. I'll give you a completely secular example. A singer appeared at a ball in a sheer dress and no underwear this year. Her husband was with her. He didn't look happy. In fact, he had the same thousand yard stare on his face that the NFP husband did.  Both men were made to look like fools in public. Don't be like that. 

• Make your husband the family disciplinarian with you as the cool parent who always take the kid's side . A family sat in front of me at Mass and I saw that the daughter was wearing sheer, gray leggings with sequins. Her bikini  underwear showed though. She wore a small tee shirt that reached her waist. The last time I saw a female dressed like that was when I noticed one of the strippers headed to work at the strip joint across the street from where I work last Thursday. The father looked uncomfortable. . The daughter's body language was apologetic. Finally the father reached over and hugged her and the drama was over. The mother looked happy but she's going to pay that later, and it will come either from the husband or the daughter who now knows what she can get away with.
  
  
  
• Read Pinterest and woman tubmlrs everyday and take it as your rule of life. Except for a few Catholic and oddly enough, most of the Mormon ones those sources are man-hating, envy and depression inducing, and worldly in the extreme. Get that stuff in your head and you'll become a real pill.
  
• Become the parish busy body. Remember Mrs. Jellyby? Don't be her. 

Our Lady of the Chains

Whenever Rocky and I go to Baltimore (no, we won't be going back this Summer) we try to stop at either St. Alphonsus or the St. Jude Shrine.  The shrine has a staute of Our Lady and the Child Jesus holding a long length of chains. This devotion was brought to Baltimore by Sicilian immigrants.

Novena to Our Lady of the Chains

O Blessed Lady of the Chain, sweet hope, eternal comfort of those who with confidence call upon you; prostrate at your feet, I profess my misery and nothingness. You who are the Queen of Heaven and earth, the Mother of Our Divine Savior, O you who are so powerful before the throne of God, please obtain for me this favor which I need so much.

May the many favors and graces which you obtain daily from Jesus for those who invoke you under the title of Mother of the Chain, encourage me to have recourse to you and present to your maternal heart all my afflictions. O powerful Virgin, break the chains of sin which hold me fast. Destroy the snares of my spiritual and temporal enemies, chain me close to you and to Jesus with a lively faith, a firm hope, and a burning charity.

Encircle me with your chains and thus unite me to your heart. United in such a way to you and to Jesus, I will fear nothing. There will be no doubt of my eternal salvation, no fear of not being granted all the temporal and spiritual blessings I need to lead a devout life.

Since I am in need of help in this present affliction, O loving Mother, I have recourse to you with childlike faith, and thus I hope to obtain the favor I am now asking.

[Here make your petition]

I am sure that you will grant me my request with that same love with which you did grant the request of the three prisoners. I am confident you will grant this favor through your merits and the merits of your Divine Son and allow me to return soon to render to you the homage of my praises and grateful thanksgivings.

Amen

(Hail Holy Queen ...)

Random thoughts and how we got here

When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control.
----Theodore Dalrymple





When my mother was girl, you had to go find the freak show. Sometimes that meant going into the tent that said "adults only"  at the carnival or  getting in to your truck and going in secret three counties over to a shack in the woods . When I was a girl it meant going to red light district downtown. By the time I was in college you could comfortably go to the back room of the video store and find the freak show. Now, it's on our computers and in the check out line at the grocery store. Not only can you not avoid it but since the freaks are feted, petted and adored you will lose your job, your business or your "friends" if you say in the mildest terms that you don't want to stand and cheer. 




I have two problems with the Benedict Option and "podding". First, is a practical consideration. If you are all in one place it makes it easy for the bad guys. Second, the whole thing seems like it could turn cultish in a second. 



I was listening to a good, solid, bread and butter priest who mentioned in passing that he sees a lot of disrespect these days. He wasn't talking about heretics, or C&E Catholics, He meant people who consider themselves good Catholics. Are you the parish busybody? Are you an inadvertent stalker? You may mean well but following your priest around the Internet is a bit much....  Are you on the liturgy committee (get off now!) and have no problem instructing the priest how you want him to celebrate Mass?  Have you started acting like your "ministry" is the most important thing in the parish?  Do you corner the priest after Mass and spend 20 minutes lecturing him while everybody stands around waiting for you to leave? Have you ever tried to start a parish group without the priest's permission or even though he said "no"? A lot of people were burned by bad priests. That does not give you the right to make every priest miserable. 

Prayer

In this painting an Italian girl is using a chair like a kneeler. I used to do that when I was a kid. One of these days I'd like to own a prie dieu. 

The mills of God grind slowly on personal and a national level.

I was reading a rant by a man who I'm guessing is in his 60s, who has lived a sinful life and won't go to church. He's disgusted by the situation we find our ourselves in politically and morally in this country. Suddenly it came to me, and I didn't write a comment because it would've caused a com-box fight and I don't get into those; that this guy is part of the problem. The nice, regular folks who have been married two or three times without shame or the slightest societal rebuke, the people who lived with their lovers without the pretense of a civil marriage, the ones who left their kids behind in order to find themselves, the millions who had Playboy on the coffee table  and spent most of their weekends in the  70s and 80s in various bars opened the door to what we have today. Yeah, the kids are ugly but when you look at what produced them you suddenly see why.

Though the mills of God grind slowly;

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting,

With exactness grinds He all.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Our Lady of the Forsaken

I love how Our Lady is leaning forward to listen to what Her Divine Son is saying.

One of my favorite Holy Family paintings

Jesus is the Door---Stay in the sheepfold

A sheepfold

John 10:1-10.
At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees, Amen, amen, I say to you, he who enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up another way, is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is shepherd of the sheep. To this man the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them forth. And when he has let out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. But a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. This parable Jesus spike to them, but they did not understand what He was saying to them. Again, therefore, Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All whoever have come are thieves and robbers; but the sheep have not heard them. I am the door. If anyone enter by Me he shall be safe, and shall go in and out, and shall find pastures. The thief comes only to steal, and slay, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.

Pentecost Sequence from Mass today

Sequentia 

Holy Spirit! Lord of light!

From Thy clear celestial height,

Thy pure, beaming radiance give:

Come, Thou, Father of the poor!

Come, with treasures which endure!

Come, Thou light of all that live!

Thou of all consolers best,

Visiting the troubled breast,

Dost refreshing peace bestow:

Thou in toil art comfort sweet;

Pleasant coolness in the heat;

Solace in the midst of woe.

Light immortal! Light divine!

Visit Thou these hearts of Thine,

And our inmost being fill.

If Thou take Thy grace away,

Nothing pure in man will stay;

All his good is turn’d to ill.

Heal our wounds - our strength renew;

On our dryness pour Thy dew;

Wash the stains of guilt away:

Bend the stubborn heart and will;

Melt the frozen, warm the chill;

Guide the steps that go astray.

Thou, on those who evermore

Thee confess and Thee adore,

In Thy sevenfold gifts descend.

Give them comfort when they die;

Give them life with Thee on high;

Give them joys which never end.

Amen. Alleluia.

a hospital for souls

In this painting by Vincente Gonzalez a mother as brought her daughter to the physician/pharmacist monk. As the sly title tells us, the daughter's melancholy isn't physical but has do with missing her boyfriend.  The wise monk probably realizes this but is gentle and patient.

Is your entertainment your god?

A Protestant (?) blogger asked the question of whether it's time for Christians to stop watching Game of Thrones. On his blog the responses have been mild or attempted to change the subject. The comments on sites where his post has been discussed  have been spicier, along the lines of "It's just fiction. It's great writing. What's the matter with you, are you some kind of art hating Philistine?"   

I'm reminded of a good priest last year who gave a lecture on The Lord of the Rings and said there are some problems with it. Grown people had fits and let's not forget the whole Harry Potter thing. If a Catholic layperson, priest or even, then Cardinal Ratzinger said anything against the J. K. Rowling books people got insulting and switched parishes, or stated that the critic just didn't know what they were talking about.  The editors of Lifesite News wrote back in 2007, that the most vicious and angry e-mail they receive comes from homosexual activists, abortion people and Harry Potter fans. Wow, that's pathetic. Mess with their entertainment and even self identified devout Catholics get huffy. I can't understand how people can get so worked up over a mere amusement. Obviously, a lot of us have turned our favorite TV show, or books into our gods.

Sleepers awake

People are getting upset over a new program that is going to be on ABC. I won't name it but Adrienne's Catholic Corner sums it up nicely. The show sounds miserable but I bet it will be a hit. ABC is owned by Disney. Disney is not your friend, parents. And Conservatives, Fox is not  your friend either. They've green lighted a series called Lucifer. It's about....you guessed it.....the Prince of this World who is bored in Hell and decides to earth to solve crimes. Yep. A show where Satan is the hero. We have come to this. Folks it's time to wake up and pay attention. The people who run the media are not only not on our side, they're actively evil. I'm not saying get rid of your TV but what are you watching and who are you enriching?

St. Michael the Archangel, 

defend us in battle. 
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil. 
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, 
and do thou, 
O Prince of the heavenly hosts, 
by the power of God, 
thrust into hell Satan, 
and all the evil spirits, 
who prowl about the world 
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen..

Random thoughts

Chinese Catholics at Mass.

• If you think about all the people Raul Castro has killed it's astonishing to see him standing next to the pope.
  
• Maureen Mullarkey has a wonderful essay on the work of a Chinese photographer  following China's Catholics. When the day comes I hope American Catholics will be as brave and as faithful.
  
  
  
• One thing I've noticed after years of reading Catholic blogs is that parent bloggers have toned down giving out embarrassing personal details about their teen-aged and young adult children. This is very good. Nobody, but especially HR departments and co-workers need to know about your daughter's reproductive cycle or the drug problem your son used to have.
  
  
• Pornography is a means of controlling masses of people. If you're besotted with smut whether it's print photos, on the Internet or in badly written "romance" books, you're too stupefied to pay attention to what's really going on around you. Popular culture is part of this. The people who are obsessed with celebrities are useless when it comes time to actually think.

• "You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large."      
  Thomas Sowell (author, economist and one of my heroes since I was a girl in high school)
  
  
  
•  Hilary White wrote this back in 2007 and I still think about it occasionally even after all this time.
  
  
• My uncle is back on the ventilator. He's awake, interested in people in his room and is trying to talk but my mother and I have come to the conclusion that he's never going to fully recover. 

Gaurdian angel

The Bishop Finn affair is sad but he is not the real victim, okay?

Over at One Peter Five they  came out strongly in defense of Bishop Finn. They feel and they’re hanging onto that feeling like a dog with a bone, that the bishop had to step down not because he failed to call the police but because the forces of evil were after him anyway. Several readers objected to that idea and the comment box turned into a battlefield. Since the argument can’t be won and the whole situation is depressing,  1P5 doesn’t want to talk about it anymore .

Well now. I like Steve Skojec  and I like reading most of the writers on 1P5 but I can’t follow the reasoning here.  I don’t doubt that some bad people went after Bishop Finn because they prefer  the diocese to be something like an Episcopalian/Unitarian/New Age mix but  in trying to quietly fix Fr. Ratigan, the bishop handed his enemies an golden opportunity. My late father in law, Big Daddy used to say, “Everybody pees in the pool some time but that boy did it from the diving board.” This isn’t about “our guy” and “their guys”. This isn't about liberals, conservatives or traditionalists. This is about the bishop's legal and spiritual duty to his flock.

The excuse that the bishop was trying to save Fr. Ratigan’s priesthood because he was under the impression that the problem was “only” pornography is not acceptable especially for a man who wrote "Blessed Are the Pure in Heart - A Pastoral Letter on the Dignity of the Human Person and the Dangers of Pornography."  Can you see St. Jean Vianney saying, “It’s only pornography?” Can you see St. Anthony Mary Claret or St. Padre Pio  tolerating a fellow priest who had pornographic interests? Can you in your wildest imagination see St. Thomas Becket, the man who excommunicated his king and friend saying  “only pornography”? I cannot.

Pray for Bishop Finn, pray for Fr. Ratigan and if you have tears to shed, let them fall for the little girls who were violated by Fr. Ratigan. 

Christ is victorious! Christ reigns! Christ commands!

Really, really bad Catholic art

 Ah the '70s, like toe nail fungus, syphilis in certain populations, a movie serial killer, and crab grass it just won't die. This hideous style of art was everywhere when I was a child and a teenager and someone in the Vatican seems to really like it.  The official logo of the vaunted Year of Mercy brought back memories of the ugliest missals ever published. I now wonder if this stuff was so popular because it made kids feel confident that they could draw something better and I have this vague memory of sitting in class and thinking that everybody in these drawings looked like a science experiment gone bad.

Michael Coren flies the coop

Never, never, never trust a big, splashy convert who is has a book to sell and speaking engagements to hawk.

So you think moving to a little town and growing your own tomatoes is the Benedict option?

Oh please! As my grandmother would say, "Lawd, ha'mercy!" I'm certain that the people babbling about "the Benedictine option" have no idea of what they speak.